


We Are Not Shining Stars

by tehhumi



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Awkward Family Reunions, Celebrimbor and Idril are bff's after he's reborn, Elrond and Celebrimbor were friends in Lindon, Elrond's been in Valinor for a couple months and is still getting to know his family members, Fourth Age, Gen, Valinor, mostly fluff but ends on kind of a depressing note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23534869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehhumi/pseuds/tehhumi
Summary: Celebrimbor, Idril, and Elrond chat in Valinor over tea.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 76





	We Are Not Shining Stars

“It’s really surprising we never spent much time together before, despite being so close in age,” Idril said.

“Actually,” Celebrimbor replied, “I happened to be thinking on that the other day, and it occurred to me that we have a lot in common.”

Elrond looked at him. “Is this going to be another list that ends up with tables flipped?”

“Depends on how much Idril likes this tea set.” Idril was the one whose house they had ended up in that afternoon. She lived on the eastern coast Tol Eressea, though the port of Avallone was hidden from view by a bluff.

“Enough that I’ll throw the rolls at you instead.”

“In front of your impressionable young grandson?”

“I am over six thousand years old.”

“Depends on how ridiculous you get. Now, what’s the similarities?”

“Chronologically, rather than in order of importance.” Celebrimbor’s speech dropped into the cadence of an expert giving a lecture. “We’re both the first grandchild, despite our fathers not being the oldest.”

Idril nodded.

“Both our mothers died in the Flight of the Noldor. Both our fathers defied the will of the Valar, and we both disobeyed them to do what was right.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Come on, I know you’ve heard about Nargothrond. We can argue technically the Valar didn’t say anything, but the whole Oath was against them, and so was any pursuit of it.”

“And _my_ father?”

Celebrimbor seemed to think the answer was obvious, and was having trouble rewording it to not be an insult.

Elrond said it. “Tuor was Ulmo’s messenger, and in that capacity bade Turgon to leave Gondolin. He did not, and you built a tunnel.” Elrond addressed all his parents and grandparents by name, both to reduce confusion and because the habit had formed as a child.

“That’s hardly the same!”

Celebrimbor shrugged “I wouldn’t bring it up at Uncle Finarfin’s dinner table, but they’re both errors of arrogance in a way.”

Idril glared at him. “Am I going to like the rest of them more?”

“Probably not, but it’ll bug you for years if I don’t tell you.” He grinned.

“Fine, go on.”

“In addition to family background, there’s our own deeds. We both managed to evacuate most of a city that Sauron and his forces were trying to destroy. Neither of us tried for the throne despite having a reasonable claim to it—yours greater than mine, honestly. And finally, we both fell in love with non-elves who are nonetheless immortal.”

Idril was livid. “You ass!” She did in fact throw a roll at him.

“I’m only trying to be complete!”

“You are not!”

“It’s hilarious!”

“No it’s not!”

“It’s not complete either,” Elrond said.

“What did I forget?”

“You both defied the Valar for the sake of your non-elven lover. Celebrimbor forging rings that make Men immortal, and Idril sailing to Valinor despite the Doom, not waiting even to see her only son’s children.”

“That’s not the spin that’s commonly put on their voyage,” Celebrimbor remarked.

“Well yes, they were also hoping to get aid from Valinor, but the Idril accompanying that crew was entirely for Tuor’s benefit. It’s okay though,” Elrond continued quietly, “I understand that some things are more important than a child knowing his family.” Elrond’s face showed his stoic acceptance that adults who loved him had to go fight wars rather than spend time with him, complete with a hint of tears in his eyes.

Idril rushed to explain. “We were sad that we might never meet our grandchildren, but the trip had to be made. Tuor has Ulmo’s favor, and we were hoping I would count as less Doomed, having been too young to choose departure for myself. It mostly worked, in that we were confined to the Enchanted Isles but not put to sleep, and when the hosts of Valinor went east, our path west was opened.”

“Huh, I don’t think I ever heard that explanation.” Elrond said in a perfectly level voice. “Everyone just makes it seem like a tragically beautiful romance. I suppose that may have come into fashion only after I was born, and the Luthien comparison had such a pleasing symmetry.”

“Wait, what just happened?” Idril said.

“Elrond is very skilled at using his tragic past to his advantage in conversation,” Celebrimbor explained.

“Everyone always danced around the topic so awkwardly; I might as well call a tune that pleased me.”

Idril said, “Maglor passed on his favorite metaphors, I see.”

“Most people were trying to be kind, but Elrond just has that sweet innocent face and arrived without any experience of court. So he played into the naivety, and stirred up shit.”

“I did not.”

“You told Celeborn that treating chronic pain was difficult for those without a connection to nature, and that the Noldor rescued from Angband could use Sindarin help. Then you paused and said they were mostly Aegnor and Angrod’s people, if it helped to know he’d give no aid to those with friends who later became murderers.”

“Oropher has left me in a bad mood, but he left fewer openings and I had to bide my time.”

“What did Oropher say?” Idril asked.

“Please don’t start trouble over something that happened millennia ago, but he said ‘It would be grimly simpler if they actually had died, rather than be brought up by kinslaying Golodh.’ He was discussing the Sindarin succession and hadn’t thought I could hear it.”

“That was cruel!”

Elrond shrugged. “Maybe, but it was true. I managed to bring up in council few weeks later that the Sons of Feanor had stolen my heritage from me, and as such I would not be able to understand the Sindar well enough to rule them. Better to let them be governed by those who had spent their life with them. He felt guilty for never rescuing and for wishing me gone.”

“As well he should!”

Celebrimbor said, “I mean, which of us hasn’t thought something like it?”

“True. If Maedhros had died at Sirion and Amras lived, Maglor would have been the leader of the Feanorians and they never would have attacked Eonwe’s camp.”

Celebrimbor nodded. “If the spear had hit Turin instead of Orodreth. Or Maeglin instead of Aredhel.”

Idril sighed. “I wouldn’t wish it to happen to _anyone_ , even him, but…”

“Exactly.”

* * *

As they were clearing the dishes some hours later, Celebrimbor asked “Where’s Tuor? Doesn’t he usually join you for tea?”

Idril glanced at Elrond. “He went out sailing today.”

“He didn’t want to see Elrond?”

“I thought today could just be the three of us cousins.”

“You don’t have to kick him out of his own home for my comfort,” Elrond said.

“I didn’t.”

“He’s ‘gone sailing’ the last three of the last five times I’ve been here, and the other two he’s been visiting someone in town and won’t be back for hours. Even Turgon thought it was odd when I brought it up.”

“We’re trying to give you space," Idril admitted. “You physically flinched back the first time we met, and shook his hand as if you were expecting a poison.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult him.”

“Tuor’s not insulted, he just obviously reminds you of something terrible, and we can give you plenty of time to heal.”

“I don’t need time.”

“You obviously do.”

“I would love to get to know my Grandpa.”

Celebrimbor said, “You’re not fooling anyone, Elrond. Out with it.”

Elrond sighed. “Fine. First off,” he said to Idril, “I want you to understand that I don’t mean this as criticism of either of you, or of your choices, of your species.”

Celebrimbor muttered, “A promising start.”

“I will do my best not to take it as such,” Idril said.

Elrond took a deep breath, and said in a rush, “Tuor doesn’t fit right, like an off note in a song. Men aren’t that old, and elves aren’t Men. He belongs less to one or the other than myself or Elros or any ‘peredhel’ I’ve ever met, even Mithrellas’s son. The fragile tie between his soul and his body declares that the world is but a way station, but his voice echoes with the past as much as any elf born in Lindon. People say he fits so well in Valinor, but he’s as inconspicuous as a crab in a top hat. In the middle of the throne room.”

Into the silence that followed, Celebrimbor said, “Well. It’s good that you prefaced your every objection to him with a request not to take it as a criticism, or else Idril might be insulted.”

“I don’t object to him, and would like to know him, but I’m not comfortable around him.”

Idril said, “No one else has a problem with him.”

“How many people in Valinor have spent a long time around Men?”

“Uncle Finrod has, and I have. I visited Numenor annually up until Ancalimon started agitating against the Valar—it was too much like Tirion as a child.”

“That was, of course, _after_ Tuor was granted long life. I’ve lived in cities with Men for six thousand years. For the past two thousand, there’s been Men in Rivendell more often than not. I’m not accusing Tuor of being marred or evil, but he not a normal Man.”

“I really don’t see why no one else noticed if you say his soul is so odd.”

“I don’t know you well enough to come up with a good metaphor for you, Idril, but here’s one Celebrimbor might understand. Imagine that Aule made a sapphire magnetic. He didn’t invent a new material. He took a sapphire that is the same as any other, and made it magnetic. It still has the same color and translucency and density and hardness, but now it’s magnetic.”

“That would be strange.”

“But it would still be a sapphire, and would not be diminished in value.”

“Yes.”

“How much more would you notice than, oh, let’s say Celeborn, who does nothing with jewels at all.”

“A lot, I’ve worked with jewels every day. Any time I tried to use a tack hammer or other thing for aligning pins, at least.”

“I notice it whenever Tuor speaks. Maybe because I’m part Ainu—the Music echoes more literally for me than for some other people.”

“We could find something to do that requires less talking,” Idril suggested. “Maybe we could all go for a hike south of Alqualonde.”

“I really think I should just get accustomed to an immortal Man.”

“There’s no need to make yourself uncomfortable just to try and make your family like you.”

“Or to make yourself forget that Men are mortal,” Celebrimbor added.

Elrond asked quietly, “What good does it do me to remember?”

“What do you mean?”

“When am I next going to meet a mortal Man? They can’t come here.”

“Well no, the land would burn them out in months, even if the Valar allowed it.”

“And we can’t leave.”

“My grandfather is seen as evidence that it’s a foolish idea.”

“So I might as well get accustomed to a Man as ancient as I am. If I stare rudely at the Dagor Dagorath, I think Elros will excuse me.”


End file.
